


Through My Eyes

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Budding serial killer, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Chesapeake Ripper, Childhood, Dissection, Gradually Getting Darker Will Graham, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal is Hannibal, Learning languages, M/M, References to Hannibal's Sister, Soulmates, Will Loves Hannibal?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12329730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: When Hannibal Lecter dreams, he sees the boy who can write so beautifully about literature and speaks plainspoken English living in the marshes of a place Hannibal's never been.When WIll Graham dreams, he sees the careful hands of a man with a very distinct purpose, baptized in blood. When Will Graham dreams, he starts to fear what he can feel growing inside him.Soulmate AU- When you dream, you see what your Soulmate is doing.





	1. When Darkness Comes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very much on a Soulmate-AU kick right now. This one will be three different chapters, structured arounf 3 points in their life. It may end up being four, I will keep you all updated! 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy! Please R and R, let me know what you think!

“Very good, ‘Annibal.” The tutor spoke above him. “Can you say what you’ve written?” She was speaking as if he were some petulant, idiotic four-year old like the one currently wiping his nose on his friends sleeve in the front of the room. He blinked at her before slowly moving his eyes away from the pulse of her heartbeat at her neck above the hideously floral patterned collar to meet her eyes. He blinked again, and held her stare.

Her insistence that he speak at least made since. His uncle was expecting results from these long hours in expensive English tutoring sessions, and though it was clear he could write the language beautifully, he had made no effort to speak it. The same could be said for any language though: French, Italian, Lithuanian. Hannibal Lecter hadn’t spoken a word in four years.

“Your uncle Robertas will not be pleased.” She tsked at him and walked away, a few of the other children giggling. He was the oldest student in the class, an easy target perhaps, for bullying. But he had no use for this banal woman and her exhausting methods. For her small cruelties that she thought there couldn’t be retribution for. But he could see her fear in her. When he would hold her gaze as he just had, his eyes not on her breasts like the other older boys, but on her pulse, her eyes. He could picture the blood pulsing beneath them. And maybe, in her own instinctual gambit, she could feel the predator within him that was threatening to break free if she didn’t stop her patronizing of him.

She went back to saying useless nonsense, guiding the young children whos words were heavy with French accents and incorrect emphasis, and he turned his mind to other things. He looked at his own handwriting, liking the way that English words had the sharp clip of Germanic languages mingled with the flowery Romance languages he was used to. He didn’t care much for English literature, but the language, when used properly, could be quite beautiful.

He had heard it outside of these walls in only the vaguest of circumstances. Down by the fish market when he was purchasing pike for his Aunt and the sellers would yell in garbled tongues what they thought were the latest prices. He heard it in a near constant droning of pointless catechisms from the other children in his tutoring. From his uncle when he would conduct business on the telephone and attempt to hide what remained of his Lithuanian heritage under a heavy tongue.

But, perhaps most intriguingly, he heard it in his dreams. Not the dreams he would categorize as nightmares, where he would be forced to bite again and again into Mischa as she screamed or when he would be chained to a wall, blood running down his chin, tasting of salt and iron and vengeance. Not those dreams, which he hid in the darkest corners of himself and built them into a box that he would open again one day, but not until he knew he had the strength to conquer what desires lay inside.

No. He could hear the words in the most pleasant dreams he had had. Not even happy dreams, just all the pinnacle of self-awareness. It was as if he were embodying another, could look down and see a body that was not his own but that seemed to be from his point of view. He could see a happy dog running around his feet, bowls of cereal that were eaten and then washed, homework furiously scribbled over.

He could feel a man’s rough hand run through his hair, ruffling it intentionally. He could hear his own voice, only it was not his own, speaking in English with what had to have been an American accent and a slight exaggeration on the vowels from an unfamiliar accent

. It was a lovely voice, calming and almost always laced with sarcasm.

Those were the dreams he would wake from feeling rested. When he could pass by the children in his class and write fluently all he had learned from the man in his dreams. He watched literary analysis of The Crucible being written in scratched cursive on cheap paper, baser points of science be scribbled between the grids of graph paper, a name that he never could make out scribbled on the top right corner of every sheet. And he could go and repeat those things, learn the language while the rest of them scrambled slow and steady.

He wondered what the language might sound like in his own voice. He liked to think he had forgotten the sound of it, and surely, after so many years, it would sound different. He was curious. But not curious enough.

Instead, he let the boy in his dream teach him all he needed to know, continued the reading and the studies and tutoring that his uncle mandated from him, and let the beast inside him lay in wait, practicing writing out the names of those he knew had to die in the language he was learning.

 

 

Will Graham often wondered what his soulmate must think of him. Based on everything he could see through the thin veil of their nocturnal connection, he could only imagine they must find his life horribly boring and not up to their own standards of living. Through their eyes, he traversed a manor of inexorable size that made the small, dockside trailer he and his father inhabited seem even smaller than it was. He moved over the grounds of a vast palace, eyes taking in page after page of books that Will couldn’t read but could admire for what his soulmate obviously thought was an ethereal beauty.

He had not heard them speak, or at least, not that he could remember. Never had heard their name spoken in such a way that it would stick with him after his dreams. Perhaps it was meant to be that way. To make it harder. Will Graham thought he might appreciate if his life were a little easier at the moment.

High school was its own kind of hell for someone like him. Adopted into a group of incongruous misfits, he neither enjoyed their company or had any other options, so he endured lunches of endless ramblings of things he didn’t find interesting and would scribble in his notebook under the guise of homework.

He found solace in books, the classics he could devour in English, and those passable that he could read in French. It seemed his dream partner enjoyed literature as well, and he could trace their long fingers as they moved along the lines of text, and he wondered if they had anything they might recommend, though he had no evidence that they spoke English. It would be his luck, to have a soulmate who spoke an entirely different language. Not that there was anything wrong with that, it was just one more thing to add to his list of complaints with the universe.

They had other interests though. Ones that almost dulled the excitement at the prospect he might meet them someday. He would wake from those dreams sweating through his sheets, sometimes his father in the doorway, bleary eyed from a night of drinking, waiting on his to stop screaming in his sleep.

It wasn’t often, and the character of the dreams had nothing particularly wrong with them. It was clinical, almost, the way he would dissect small animals, peeling back layers of skin and fact and drawing, with the intricacy of a professional artist, the organs that lay beneath. When a scalpel would be traded for small scissors that would removed the lungs so he could get at the heart underneath. All done in a perfunctory manner, all done seeming for informational purposes. He had dissected things before, cleaned hundreds of fish and been covered in incongruous pieces of blood and innards until he was almost sick from the smell. Those dreams didn’t particularly bother him.

Until one night the animal on the other end of the scalpel was a man, his eyes filled with pure terror as the scalpel worked through his organs, pulling out what Will had learned from the dozens of rats was most likely a kidney. He hadn’t made it through that dream, and instead, he had woken, his scream an echo of the man’s as he undoubtedly died on the table he was held fast to.

Now Will Graham was afraid to sleep. He would close his eyes, wishing for peaceful days of only books or of the elaborate drawings they would make. Not the anger, the fear, the capitulation of that’s man’s death. He was afraid to see something like it again, though it wasn’t the fear that he was expecting. It was not the fear that his mate was a murderer, killing other people and taking their organs like decorative trophies somewhere in the world where the intrusiveness of America would likely never find him. It wasn’t fear that he might end up their someday if their eventual meeting ended poorly.

Instead, it was a fear of himself, of the fascination that he had now, separated from the images. The richness of the blood spilling over his mate’s fingers, soaking into the man’s own clothes; the feel of his flesh giving way in smooth, even cuts as his mate dug into them, the thrill of seeing the terror written so plainly across their face. He could feel himself reacting, entranced by the thought to where it nearly dominated his waking moments when he wasn’t forced to focus on something else. Will Graham was afraid, but for now, only of himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, folks! 
> 
> Sorry for the delay on this, I couldn't decide where I wanted to go next and where I wanted to end, so I hope this was a good decision! As always, I hope you enjoy, please R and R, let me know what you think!

“How did you end up in law enforcement, exactly?” The man talking was a dark-skinned man, easily six inches taller than he was, bald and peering down at him with a confused expression. “Not that I don’t think you can do it. You just seem a little….”

“Small?” He heard the words come out of his mouth. “Maybe I should have thought of that, might have saved myself getting stabbed.” He could feel a twinge come from where his rotator cuff now bore a scar. He wished for a moment he could implore his mate to roll his shoulder, feel the extent of the injury there, to know how badly the scar tissue had interfered with their mobility. But another part of him admired their callousness yet again as the other officer looked away, stuffing hands into too tight uniform pockets, trying to speak before shuffling away.

Their eyes returned and Hannibal felt as the hands that were not his own, instead thinner, broad, the fingers not quite as long, went back to filling out the paperwork on the desk. He felt his glasses be straightened, which he was thankful for as he scanned the documents. He felt the rough scratch of the pen against his fingers, shaking slightly as they pressed too hard into the paperwork than was necessary. But the writing was clear enough, a Resignation, effective immediately. After only a moment, a scrawled signature gracing the bottom of the page, he felt his lips turn into an involuntary smile.

One that was reflected as Hannibal Lecter woke, the midnight hour chiming in his mind and in the bells of the nearby chapel. Since he had traveled to America, his dreams had been a mix of complete darkness as he and his soulmate slept at the same hours, brief glimpses of Tylenol, whiskey, and red alarm clock numbers marking too early hours for waking as they couldn’t get their bearings on a proper night’s rest, and his own dark thoughts that sounded horribly like the debate of starving men and the crying of a small blonde child whose face he could no longer quite picture perfectly. Did she have one dimple or two? Ash blonde hair or the silvery blonde that he and their mother had shared? Which of their mother’s pastries had been her favorite? Which story their father had told?

He was relieved now, spending nearly two weeks in Paris for a conference from his current employer, that they were in different time zones and his dreams were once again in full color and full of the vivid life they must lead. He could taste the heavy sweat of his work, maneuvering in clothes designed for safety rather than comfort, accumulating scars from lesser beings than Hannibal was. He had found himself almost fearful that a stray bullet might silence his dreams, leave him permanently alone with his thoughts again, but the moment never came and now it seemed as though they might be safe.

He began his work for the night, gelling his hair into place. It was the last night of the conference, and though he had typically avoided leaving displays of himself spread too thin across the globe, he was curious as too whether anyone would be able to connect the trace dots he had been leaving. He was nearing a decade of the same behavior, though he was glad he lacked the compulsion to follow the same pattern that he had seen lesser killers fall as a result of. But the pattern was there, at least to him, but he had recognized his superior mind long ago and had accepted that perhaps no one would ever see it.

He stepped out into the night, stepping into one of the fleet of cars the hotel provided guests and began to drive through the darkened streets. The city was alive, glimmering and beating with a pulse of danger. He parked away, dressing himself in his coverings, covered with his long coat, hardly the strangest site on this odd corner of the streets. One of the presenters lived here, a doctor of note in family trauma, who had seemed polite enough at the offset. But it had been in a passing conversation with another Doctor that Hannibal had conversed with, mocking the Lithuanian accent that still twisted his tongue around spoken English. The other doctor, to their credit, and now to their live, had seemed uncomfortable at least, but this one’s eyes had glinted with amusement. Had questioned his talents as a therapist for his voice.

He stepped over the threshold, ringing the bell to be allowed up, speaking in fast French to the maid who was operating the door. She didn’t spare him a glance, relieved at a friendly voice she didn’t have to interpret in rough English, and he stepped to where he needed to be, shrouded by the darkness the late evening brought. She wouldn’t remember him. He would be gone long before they found what was left of him and would not stay long enough to arouse her suspicions to begin with.

 

 

Will Graham felt strange. Exhilarated for the first time in what felt like ages. He had stopped sleeping as he should years before, but tonight, after his only friend on the force had bought him a bottle of nice whiskey to celebrate his resigning and moving to Virginia to teach, he had indulged and fallen soundly onto the couch with the bottle still open on the table unknowingly. It took him several long moments to realize that he wasn’t awake at all.

The body he stood in was not his own, he was, for the first time in what felt like ages, operating as his soulmate. He could smell blood, so strong he could nearly taste it between his lips that were closed in a thin line of anger at the man’s face staring up at him in fear. But he could feel the excitement, the dark glint of personal satisfaction in his job well done. His eyes turned to his own hands, covered in the same plastic wrappings that covered his body, blood running off of them as if slick with furniture polish as he pulled what Will could recognize as kidneys from the man beneath him.

Will waited on his body to wake up, at the horror he felt to jar him from sleep as the body in front of him stopped resembling a man and instead was twisted and knotted and smeared with blood until it was a tableau fixture of art, a gift-wrapped scene for a criminal investigator with the exception of a complete lack of evidence as to who had committed the crimes. The kidneys fell into a Ziploc bag and he waited still, humming softly to himself as he washed his hands and clothes of visible blood in the sink, disappearing out of an apartment in a place Will had never been.

He waited still as he drove through the streets, almost feeling as if he were part of this mission, part of this travesty against mankind, and waited still as the plastic covering was removed and folded into the same cooler where the kidneys now rested, a cooler than might pass for a simple shopping bag. He saw the glimmering, half-darkness of an ornate hotel lobby, the friendly wave of the concierge and night clerk who asked if he needed assistance. Part of him wanted to yell, to scream about what was happening, but trapped in a body beyond his own, he was powerless. The other part, the darker part that lingered too long at crime scenes and dissected criminal motives with a precision and speed that had gotten him four awards from the Louisiana State Police Department was intrigued. Hungry to know what was happening.

He felt himself enter what seemed to be the penthouse suite, broad-sweeping windows opening on an old world skyline lit with contemporary nightlife. He waited, felt the hands that felt like his folded and cleaning away the last trace bits of anything that might have been a cause for concern. And then the cooler.

His eyes fixed on it, his lips curled into a small, self-satisfied smile. Out of his peripheral vision, Will Graham saw a mirror. Implored his mate to go there, to look at himself so that Will might know them. But it seemed that they had figured that out long before and he had never seen their face. Never heard their name. He wondered briefly if they knew his, but could only watch helplessly as his mat took on a singular focus to finish his night’s work.

What would happen? He had seen serial killer nests before. Displays of trophies they had kept. Shuttered away from public view until their own vices had betrayed them. But this was two kidneys. A thought flitted across his mind that perhaps his soulmate was some strange vigilante, replacing organs in those who needed them and couldn’t afford any way but the black market. But this strange flash of what might have been hope was dashed quickly as they moved past the counter, opening the doors to the cabinets.

It was the first time that Will had seen actually food items be stored in a hotel. He always ate in the nearby vicinity, gracing the doors of many Subways and McDonald’s and Wendy’s in his trips to investigative conferences, but this was entirely different. And array of spices came out, olive oil, and a bowl, all previously used. They must have been cooking a while, have stayed a while in this place.

He waited, knowing that if he were himself, could feel his own body, that his heart would be hammering in his chest, refusing to accept what was happening even as he watched the small organs be drained of any remaining biles, slices thin and mixed into a marinade of their creation. They were wrapped, placed in a thick plastic covering, and joined the remains of a full carton of eggs, clearly intended for breakfast. And with this realization, Will still didn’t wake.

It wasn’t until those eyes found an alarm clock, reading nearly 2 a.m. and he had pulled all of his clothes but black boxers off of long, muscular legs that he could feel himself start to stir as himself again. When his mate’s eyes closed, fading into the blackness of sleep, he was jarred from sleep, sweating into the cushions of his couch as he convulsed in horror, fear, and in almost the most terrifying moment, a think prickling of pride that ran down his spine.


End file.
